


A Beautiful Day in France

by Akallabeth



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, Untitled Goose Game (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Era, Don't copy to another site, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Goose/chaos otp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-20
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 17:48:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21103496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akallabeth/pseuds/Akallabeth
Summary: You are a horrible goose.[Or; Les Mis now with paradoxically less violence due to a goose attacking people]





	1. The Evening of a Day of Knavery

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PilferingApples](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilferingApples/gifts), [ghostplantss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostplantss/gifts), [ERNest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/gifts).

Digne, 1815.

The traveler, expelled now from both inn and tavern, and turned away from the local prison, directed his weary feet towards the next street. It held small houses in large gardens, each separated from the street (and its neighbors) by a waist-high hedge, with stout wooden gates barring each path.

A single-story house caught his eye, light pouring out its window where the neighboring houses lay shuttered against the Alpine night. Within, a glimpse of a vanished world: father, mother, two young children; their supper laid out on a table with a coarse white linen cloth.

The man let himself in through the little gate, and tapped softly at the door.

The light vanished.

At that first, gentle sound, someone had thrown the shutter fast closed. At the same time, the traveler heard a sudden, high-pitched child's cry, hushed by the lower murmur of a woman speaking soft but quickly. A memory rose up, unbidden, of another young wife--a young widow--using that tone to quiet hungry children during the night, when men must sleep...

Had he any other recourse, the man should have turned around and left the cottage with its gated hedge. But, betrayed by the memory and with all other doors closed against him, he risked a second, louder knock. 

The door swung open.

Two shots flew past the man's knees, one close enough to singe a mark on his trousers.

"Away, foul fowl! Bother someone else!"

The traveler did not wait to discover the meaning of this, but was already fleeing the street, jumping clear over a thick hedge in the process.

The footsore traveler, now wary of approaching another house, gave up on finding a place to sleep indoors. Even the empty huts in this town seemed to teem with restless, snapping dogs. He instead settled down on a bench in the town center, falling almost instantly into a dreamless sleep.

From which he awoke, also instantly, to a loud hiss and a face full of feathers. Feathers, feathers everywhere--and great wings beating at his head accompanied by shrill hisses and honks. The traveller sprang from the bench, confused (and possibly concussed). He shielded his face with the club-like walking stick that remained clasped in his left hand, but he tripped over his fallen rucksack as 10 pounds of feathered fury forced him into an undignified retreat. The traveler backed into a doorway, preparing to properly defend himself against the onslaught, only to stumble against the latch and fall backward into the house beyond. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't actually played the game. This odd crossover came to mind during Pilf's recent observations about the bishop not locking doors and local wildlife. Credit to tumblr users lizardrosen, ghostplantss, and pilferingapples for an inspiring discussion into goose psychology and literary animal symbolism.


	2. The Fall

Digne, 1815.

"There's only the one loaf, I'm afraid, Mademoiselle", Mme Magloire explained to her employer. "That--that _bird _chased me half-way from the bakery to the square, and made off with the rest when it knocked the basket off my arm outside the printer's. The bakery was closed by that point, so there was no replacement to be had."

"Catch your breath, Madame Magloire, and do not worry", Baptistine Myriel's calm countenance never faltered. "We will have the rye loaf with dinner tonight, and if necessary we can break our fast tomorrow on milk alone."

Mme Magloire's wheezing subsided. "That's all well, Mademoiselle, but what are we to do about that menace? It was lucky the creature did not pursue me straight into the house, with no lock and only a flimsy latch on the door. Every other house is bolted against it--and we should be safer from any wingless trouble-makers beside."

"Let us see what my brother says." 

Conveniently, the bishop entered the dining room at that exact moment. He had, per his custom, spent the time immediately before dinner pouring over his books. Today, working on his great Treatise on Duty, he had become stuck on certain passages from the writings of St. Charles the Weaselly concerning duties towards animals:

> Respecting the goose, a most wondrous terrifying creature, man might not but leaveth 't high-lone at all costs and fleeth bef're its caprices, lest the beast afflict that man sorely...

He pondered these words, even as Mme Magloire exclaimed. 

"Monseigneur, we must see to the locks!" She went on, "that goose is running wild throughout the town, and everyone is saying there will be some sort of catastrophe in the town to-night. The police fight with the mayor, and neither will do anything about the goose! We are left quite to our own devices against it. Let me fetch the locksmith and have the old bolts replaced."

"I am not inclined to lock out any of God's creatures when our brothers may stand in need of our aid--"

At that moment, the front door swung in, and a harassed-looking man fell through it, grappling with the very goose Mme Magloire so feared.

"Welcome", the bishop beamed, as though welcoming a friend and _not _witnessing 170 combined pounds of dirty stranger and hissing waterfowl rolling about his floor.

Mme Magloire sighed, and retrieved her broom from the corner, where she had taken to keeping it. Mlle Baptistine had already acquired the fireplace poker, and between the two of them (and a well-thrown slice of bread from the bishop) they managed to escort the goose back outdoors. 

The only casualty was one of Mademoiselle's slippers, which was carried off by the feathery miscreant.

Dinner was delayed for a few minutes while Mademoiselle repaired her attire, Madame tidied the floor, and Monsieur calmed the newcomer (primarily by retrieving the pack that had been abandoned outdoors). When the repast resumed, it was with a third diner, and all the small gestures that distinguish a family meal from one honoring a friend. 

Mid-way through dinner, Mother Gerbaud appeared at the door, shivering, with a child in her arms. "That goose nabbed my shawl not a half hour ago", she confessed to Baptistine while the bishop hunted through his pockets, and finally presented the poor woman with 15 sous from his sister. That sister, meanwhile, had sent Mme Magloire for her own warmest shawl, and draped it over mother and child before they could protest. The wind that night was strong, and fairly doubled the misery of even a short walk. 

**

Daybreak found the bishop walking in the garden. This garden--a few flowers, many vegetables, the odd fruit trees, and a small cowshed-- was separated from the street by the same stone wall which enclosed the whole cathedral close. The observer would notice, however, that a certain wicket gate communicating between the garden and Cochefilet Lane was (like the bishop's house itself) left permanently unbarred. A closer look would reveal the gate did not even latch, but rather swung on a sort of counter weight such that anyone might enter or leave the garden by simply pushing at the gate, which would settle closed behind.

Myriel bent to the earth to pick up a familiar basket, and examine the _cochlearia des Guillons_ it had landed on. This proved fortuitous on two accounts: first, in providing a receptacle for the smaller articles he'd been fishing out of the flower beds that morning, and second in pre-emptively offering an answer to Mme Magloire's inquiry after its whereabouts.

Mme Magloire looked into the basket. "This isn't the silver."

"It is mostly a bronze basket today." The house-keeper returned the basket, which instead of silverware contained a small number of franc and half franc silver coins, and a large quantity of bronze centimes.

"If you would be so kind as to deposit these in the dining room", he handed her a woman's shawl of blue striped wool, two workman's caps, a finely monogrammed pocket handkerchief, a wooden top, a silver-topped cane, and three different pocket books. "If Mademoiselle's afternoon visits will take her to Mere Gerbaud, she may wish to return the shawl. I will see about little Louis's top and Paulin's cap. The other has no name in it. Perhaps when you go marketing, you could let the merchants know it's been found?"

[Sensible persons in Digne put their names on all small tools and articles of clothing. Coins were another matter. But, as the bishop once remarked, concerning a silver franc: "It says here 'France'. Let us return it to its owner--the poor people of France."]

"Yes, of course. But what of the silver?"

"May lost things in Digne end up in this garden." The bishop bent again to inspect the damaged piece of scurvy-grass, and found another 5 centime piece in the process. "I will keep the basket to clear the herb beds. They unusually disordered this morning."

**

"My good Monsieurs", the Bishop smiled at the gendarmes, and gestured towards the side board which housed the town's _de facto_ lost-and-found. "Being near to lost property is hardly proof of theft."

In the distance there was a faint, "Honk"[1] of agreement.

**

Late that afternoon, on the road outside of Digne, a boy with a marmot and hurdy-gurdy dropped his 40-sou coin. The only other traveller, a poorly dressed man with a rucksack, trod on it. He remained thus some minutes, in an attitude of stupefaction, despite the child's pleas. Until...

"HONK!!!"

That same afternoon, a cure riding along the Digne road encountered, first, a bareheaded man with a soldier's rucksack, a heavy walking stick, and a distant expression on his face as he trudged along; second, a young Savoyard walking briskly in the opposite direction, and looking left and right as though expecting to be attacked at any moment; and, finally, a leather-brimmed workingman's cap, rather badly crushed and lying amid some goose feathers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1Translation from Goose-language: "Property is theft."[return to text]
> 
> Fake old-sounding writing was assisted by the English to Shakespearean translator at https://lingojam.com/EnglishtoShakespearean. The familiar parts of Magloire's plea to Myriel are from the Hapgood translation (1.2.2 Prudence Counselled to Wisdom), though in the brick she's concerned with dangerous convict Jean Valjean, not a horrible goose.
> 
> Does the goose give alms through the bishop? Is it just using the only garden open to it as place to drop things? We may never know. Myriel makes a point of returning the property of the poorer residents of Digne. Everyone else has to come ask. Anything unclaimed is clearly a donation to the poor.
> 
> The goose totally stole Jean Valjean's hat and ran off with it. This had the fortunate, if unintended, side effect of restoring Petit Gervais's coin to him.


	3. The Inefficacy of M. Batamabois

Montreuil-sur-Mer. January 1, 1823.

The dandy, loitering outside a cafe patronized by officers and those who aped their manners, blew smoke into the snowy night. That this should primarily be timed to the pacing of a young woman (over-dressed for the street by way of being under-dressed for the weather) before the establishment was surely a coincidence.

That she should be deaf to his attempted witticisms and blind to his smoke clouds must likewise be coincidence.

That he should stoop to scoop up a handful of snow when her back was to him could only also be a coincidence.

That this posture brought his face into easy range of the goose lurking in the alley was not a coincidence. 

To a goose, there are no coincidences. Only those foolish enough to cross its path.

**

M. Bamatabois' undignified squeak of surprise was lost in the hissing, honking maelstrom that engulfed him. 

[Or, as Captain F--- of the ---th infantry of the line, an eyewitness, reported to this author some years later, "That goose ran straight at the poor b------, pulled the cigar right out of his mouth with its beak, then beat him on the head with its wings for a solid minute. I never laughed harder in my life."] 

"Hoooooonk!"[1]

The commotion attracted a crowd: merrymakers spilled out of the cafe, supplemented by a number of interested passers-by.

The woman took advantage of the incident to make her escape. Perhaps there was no custom to be had in the face of such excitement, or perhaps she feared damage to her poor finery, or perhaps she knew--with that instinct of common to mistreated dogs and the lowest orders of humanity--that any trouble in the neighborhood was like to be fixed on one such as her regardless of guilt. Or the presence of a clear, feathered culprit. 

Among those crowding (though not _too _closely) around the spectacle, there arrived the tall figure of Javert, Inspector of Police. He made his way to the front of the assemblage, face set with determination.

This was turned, very promptly, into consternation. Did geese even fall under municipal jurisdiction? Javert wracked his brain for any rule, protocol, or local ordinance which might apply to the situation.

"Who is the owner of this creature?"

No one stepped forward, though the goose stopped hitting the cowering man long enough to shake its wings at Javert, accompanied by a loud "Hissss!"[2]

***

Half an hour later, with the crowd dispersed and the injured man conveyed to his lodgings (under the care of the local physician), a tall, muddy and disheveleled figure entered the police station. He was, uncharacteristically, hatless and his leather collar had twisted around so that the buckle was under his left ear.

Gaining his desk, Javert retrieved pen and paper. In his agitated state, he nearly upset a bottle on ink in the process. He had just beheld, yonder, in the street, society, in the person of a freeholder and an elector, insulted and attacked by a creature who was outside all pales. A goose had made an attempt on the life of a citizen. He had seen that, he, Javert. He wrote in silence:

> _A memorandum on the protocols for handling disturbances caused by domestic animals in the public streets..._

The next morning, one copy of this memorandum was sent on to Paris police, in the person of Monsieur Chabouillet. Some years later, this singular missive found its way into the archives of the prefecture, where it can be viewed to this day[3]

A second copy was delivered into the hand of M. Madeleine, mayor of Montreuil-sur-mer. The messenger, accustomed to the mayor's oddities, was not daunted by finding the mayor's office unoccupied; he swiftly located the gentleman in the infirmary, where the mayor sat at the bedside of a pale young woman, speaking to her of the travel times between Montreuil and Montfermeil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1"As Prometheus stole fire from the gods, so I take it from you."[return to text]
> 
> 2"No kings. No masters."[return to text]
> 
> 3Chabouillet, In-coming Correspondence. Box 2, Folder 1, Item 9 [return to text]
> 
> All familiar text is direct from the Hapgood translation, because it's funnier (and public domain). [Primarily: "He had just beheld, yonder, in the street, society, in the person of a freeholder and an elector, insulted and attacked by a creature who was outside all pales. A prostitute had made an attempt on the life of a citizen. He had seen that, he, Javert. He wrote in silence."] Also, Fantine got Bamatabois' escape. She deserves it more.
> 
> I cut a short bit where Fantine faints after escaping from the scene. Fortunately, she is caught by the mayor, who carries her directly to the infirmary. 
> 
> Apparently, geese can live 10-24 years. Les Mis is set 1815-1833.  
It could all be the same goose.  
Or perhaps they are legion...


	4. Convictions in the Process of Formation

Arras, 1823

"We have in our grasp not only a marauder, a stealer of fruit; we have here, in our hands, a bandit, an old offender who has broken his ban, an ex-convict, a miscreant of the most dangerous description, a malefactor named Jean Valjean, whom justice has long been in search of, and who, eight years ago, on emerging from the galleys at Toulon, began consorting with this dangerous goose, which had itself long beset the town of Digne. The said convict then brought this fowl north to Montreuil, from where they have rampaged the countryside. This theft of apples is but the latest in a long career of burglary, property destruction, minor assault, and general mayhem. I ask you, gentlemen of the court, will you allow such lawlessness to run unchecked?"

M. Madeleine entered the court room as the _avocat général_ finished his statement. Invited to sit, the mayor instead requested permission to speak.

  
"Gentlemen, many of you have been troubled by this goose." There was some murmuring in the courtroom. Many pairs of eyes turned to M. Bamatabois, witness for the prosecution, who flinched at the word 'goose' each time it was pronounced. "I ask you you to consider the unhappy case of this man before you. Was it such a man who attacked you, or was it a bird? To be near a crime, good sirs, is not be guilty of it. Where was Jean Valjean? Why should he be held to account for actions not his? Do you believe he has somehow trained this goose to act in his favor? No, for it attacked him that night he sleep in Digne, before a kindly cure, a bishop, allowed him lodging for the night. This bird has dogged his steps, a vengeful fury, since that day. But it acts alone, it travels from town to town, but has the man you see before ever followed in its wake?"

"No, you have not." The murmuring grew louder, but M. Madeleine continued, "I thank you gentlemen, for your efforts here tonight, but you were on the point of committing a great error. Release this man! I am fulfilling a duty; I am that miserable criminal. I am not mad--I am the only one here who sees the matter clearly--and I am telling you the truth. God, who is on high, looks down on what I am doing at this moment, and that suffices. You can take me, for here I am: but I have done my best; I concealed myself under another name; I have become rich; I have become a mayor; I have tried to re-enter the ranks of the honest. But before that, I robbed Monseigneur the Bishop, it is true; the goose had nothing to do with this. It is true that I almost robbed a boy, a poor Savoyard sweep, Little Gervais, on the mountain road from Digne. They were right in telling you that Jean Valjean was a very vicious wretch. But, he never worked with a goose. It, rather, attacked him that night in Digne, and he had no desire to do otherwise."

"As for M. Bamatabois, I know of no injury that I have done him, nor has this prisoner here. It was a goose, and no man, who broke both of his arms and severely concussed him two months ago. Let no man, therefore, suffer the penalty of it."

"Gentlemen, you may arrest me for my earlier crimes." When no one made a move to do, Madeleine--Jean Valjean, as he declared himself to be--continued. "I do not wish to disturb the court further. I shall withdraw, since you do not arrest me. I have many things to do. You all know who I am, and where I will be, and may have me arrested as you like." He then withdrew from the court, as inconspicuously as he had arrived.

The whole room remained in a stunned silence for some moments. M. Madeleine a thief? A convict? A consorter with geese?

The silence ended abruptly, dozens of voices vying with eachother express their incredulity (and thereby, perhaps, restore some the speakers own shaken sense of normalcy). The bailiff's attempts to restore order had rather the opposite effect. For, it transpired, the whole court had been so engrossed by M. Madeline's unexpected statements, that no one had noticed a small, feathered form moving between the crowded benches and seats. Shoes were unlaced, half the hats in the room had gone without a trace, and (somehow) the defense counsel's braces had become fastened quite securely to the chair beside him.

But most obstructive to the belatedly-deployed constables was the thick layer of slippery goose droppings surrounding each door to the building and liberally coating each tread of the stairs... 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The trial speeches are somewhat tweaked from the Hapgood translation (mostly 1.7.10-11).


	5. Waterloo

Belgium, 1815.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, surveyed the battlefield before him. He had won. Seven long years. Talavera. Vittoria. Salamanca. Toulouse. And now, Waterloo.

Finally it was over.

Again.

His eyes took in the gruesome spectacle of the field, a panorama of horror that dwarfed even Badajoz. If Blücher's Prussians had not arrived, late and sorely needed, if the rain had not slowed the French artillery... But no. There was no use pondering hypotheticals now. Napoleon had fled the field, Ney was captured, the Old Guard finally routed, and the last few pockets of surprisingly fierce resistance had been extinguished. The field was theirs. 

A sharp tug at his left hip awoke the general from his musings. A second nearly knocked him over. He caught his footing, turned towards the interloper, hand going immediately for his sword.

Neither weapon nor adversary were where he expected. 

_Hissssss._ [1]

His sword was on the ground. Above it, a battle-worn wraith of dingy grey.

This, this _goose,_ had pulled his sword from its sheath, and taunted him now, here, on the field of his greatest victory.

"Shoo. Away. No, put that down!"

**

The official report of the battle mentioned only that General Wellington had encountered unexpected resistance on the morning of the 19th, quickly put down without further casualties. And if surviving members of the 33rd Foot claimed to have seen their supreme commander swearing up a storm while chasing a bird that had stolen his sword, well, renaming their regiment to honor the Duke would put an end to that.

1"Rain does not stop me."[return to text]


End file.
